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McHendry: Local pastor takes part in Ice Bucket Challenge

George McHendry

Enterprise Columnist

Posted:
08/28/2014 01:00:00 AM MDT

George McHendry Religion columnist

When my wife and I first heard about the Ice Bucket Challenge, we thought it was rather "silly" and insignificant. Those of us who watch sports know in important games a winning coach will get doused with Gatorade.

So what is the big deal about the current Ice Bucket Challenge? The big deal is that it has become a major fundraiser in the fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. As of Friday, the ALS Association received $53.3 million in donations from July 29 to Aug. 21 compared to $2.2 million during the same time period last year. The bulk of the increase came from 1.1 million new donors.

Most of that money came from in Ice Bucket Challenges taking place all over the nation. It is all over social media, including Facebook, where last week I saw a video of Pastor Brian Wiesinger of The Crossing Church of the Nazarene wearing a white robe and being doused by church staff members.

The rules are fairly simple. Once you are challenged to be doused, you have 24 hours to either comply, give money to ALS or both. Once you have been doused, you then issue challenges to friends or family. Or in the case of Pastor Wiesinger, you then issue the challenge to fellow pastors, in this case Christian education pastor Amy Guthrie and worship arts pastor Nate Sutliff. I have not yet seen videos of those two taking the challenge, but I regularly check Facebook to see which of my friends are involved in this great fundraiser.

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Until this idea came along, public awareness of the disease was low. The ALS Association states that prior to the challenge going viral, only half of Americans had heard of the disease. I contacted Wiesinger after he took the Ice Bucket Challenge and he had this to say about the experience: "It's great to see social media used for good, criss-crossing our country, one ALS challenge after another. The power of friendships raising money for a great cause. It was exciting and a bit chilly being a part of it."

According to Wikipedia, the Ice Bucket Challenge first received increased media attention in the United States on June 30, 2014, when personalities of the program "Morning Drive" (on the Golf Channel) performed a live, on-air Ice Bucket Challenge. It then received even more attention when television anchor Matt Lauer did the Ice Bucket Challenge on July 15 in "The Today Show" at the request of golfer Greg Norman. And here we are months later with 1.1 million new donors to the ALS Association.

I should mention this movement isn't without criticisms. Some have accused the campaign of being self-congratulatory, focusing primarily on fun rather than donating to charity. William MacAskill, vice president of Giving What We Can, suggested the "challenge encouraged moral licensing, meaning some people might use taking part in the challenge as a substitute for other charitable acts."

It also was pointed out that videos of celebrities taking part generally forgot to share donation information and that the initial $15 million raised was insignificant, given the star power of the participating celebrities. Two exceptions were Charlie Sheen and Bill Gates. Pamela Anderson refused to take part in the challenge, because of the use of animal experimentation in ALS research. And members of the pro-life movement criticized the campaign because of the connection between embryonic stem cell research and ALS research. And then there was a blogger who criticized the entire challenge as a waste of water.

Meanwhile, if you want to see Wiesinger get doused, check out facebook.com/CrossingChurchCO. If you want to talk to him about his experience, you can find him leading worship at 5 p.m. Saturdays and 9 and 11 a.m. Sundays at the church, 3501 W. 104th Ave. The church's web site is crossingchurch.org and the phone number is 303-469-5149.

Are there any other local pastors or congregations who have taken the Ice Bucket Challenge? If so, I would love to hear about it. This is a wonderful example of how a simple idea went viral and raised an incredible amount of money for a very worthy cause.

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